Lib at Large: Steve Wolf sings his way back to health

AT 7 O'CLOCK ON Saturday mornings, when most working musicians are still sleeping off the night before, Steve Wolf is sitting with his acoustic guitar behind a microphone in a corner of the Fairfax Coffee Roastery, singing as if his life depends on it. And, to some extent, it does.

The 55-year-old singer-songwriter has been plagued by chronic health problems that have sidelined him for much of the past four years. As he struggles to recover, this humble early morning gig is part of his healing process, the beginning, he hopes, of a return to the life he once led.

"I show up here every Saturday because it's necessary on a spiritual level," he says one recent Saturday during a break between sets. "I'm grateful I'm still alive. Every time I open my mouth to sing, I'm aware that time is passing. So I'm grateful that I get to do this right now."

In the early '90s, I wrote about Wolf and his band, Pack of Wolves, focusing on his lupine demeanor, his stage presence and his talent as a songwriter. He seemed destined for bigger things.

But when Pack of Wolves eventually broke up, he seemed to disappear into thin air. He wasn't playing in his hometown's many bars and clubs anymore. I wondered, what had happened to him?

Then, on a recent Saturday morning, passing through Fairfax on the way to an assignment, I just happened to duck into the Coffee Roastery and there he was, dressed in black jeans and a black tank top, singing songs like "Shoes," which he wrote last year.

"Dry your eyes and face the day/Live or die it's come what may...Goodbye mother, goodbye pop/Never thought that time would stop/Call a preacher, call a cop/Waiting for the shoe to drop."

To hear Wolf tell it, the shoe dropped on Christmas Eve 2008, when he was hospitalized with excruciating abdominal pains caused by a ruptured colon that required emergency surgery and two follow-up operations.

"That began a couple of years of recovery," he told me.

During his convalescence, he took refuge on a friend's land in Mendocino County, where he had hoped to rest and work on his music. In the wrong place at the wrong time, he was swept up in a law enforcement raid on a pot farm.

"The DEA flew in with their helicopters," he recalled. "They snatched me up, manhandled me and threw me in a car. But all the charges were eventually thrown out."

Making matters worse, his recovery was complicated by a flare-up of hepatitis C, a debilitating virus he'd contracted in the 1970s.

"My health got to the point where I couldn't do anything anymore," he sighed.

In the past, he'd resisted chemotherapy to treat the infection, but it became increasingly clear to him that it was the only chance he had left to bring it under control. So a year ago he began regular home chemo treatments that appear to be killing the virus. The downside is that he sometimes feels like they're killing his musical comeback, too.

"When I was sick on chemo, I was beginning to wonder if I was every going to be able to sing again," he recalled.

He needed someone to help him get through this, and that person turned out to be Mason Holcomb, a budding 23-year-old Fairfax artist and novice musician who was still in high school when he heard Wolf singing in a small Bolinas Road club, asked him for lessons and became his friend and musical protege.

"At first Steve was panicked because chemo tears you away from reality," Holcomb explained, sitting by Wolf's side at a table cluttered with a tray of watercolors, a small canvas and a hand-lettered sign that said, "Get your portrait painted."

"I held his hand and guided him through the first couple of weeks of chemo," he said. "It was all about supporting him, giving him a shoulder to lean on, especially on workdays, when he had shows. Six or seven hours of playing while you're on chemo can take a lot out of you."

Wolf and Holcomb's now perform occasionally as a duo and co-write songs, like a recent adaptation of W.H. Auden's poem "Death's Echo." But most of Wolf's limited energy is poured into Samurai Wolf, a collaboration with acoustic guitarist and Buddhist teacher Teja Bell.

While excited about his prospects, he's frustrated at the same time by his inability to bounce back from the chemo treatments, a condition that may be because of a problem with his heart.

"I might need a pacemaker," he said. "I've lost three years, and I've waited a long time to get back up to where I am. I've got so many new songs and things I want to do. I'm kind of low on energy right now, and I need to fix that. If I do, I plan on coming back to the music scene with a vengeance."